Etna Nord

Our last day on Etna and we decided to head round the eastern flank to do a couple of walks on the north-eastern slopes. Our drive took us up the coast well above the autostrada, just below the Valle del Bove which we had looked down on yesterday, and unfortunately in an almost continuous string of towns, narrow streets and congestion. Things improved greatly once through Fornazzo and onto the very scenic SP Mareneve road which winds up through forests and lava flows to the start of our two walks.

The first walk was a short sentiero natura, or nature trail, off the Rifugio Citelli road at Monte Sartoria, a group of seven small adventive cones which spewed out 96 million cubic metres of lava in 150 days in 1865.  An easy and varied walk taking in sections of beech forest growing on scoria, volcanic bombs, lava and several of the larger cones.  The views north to the Nebrodi Mountains and Taormina were fantastic.

Lots of lava flow with the Nebrodi Mtns and Taormina in the background

If you’ve ever walked a beach with J, you know she’ll get home with pockets full of shells. Seems the same applies to volcanoes…

From there we drove up to the small ski field of Piano Provenzana, which was completely smashed by a lava flow during a 2002/03 eruption. It now consists of a new carpark in the middle of the lava field and a few timber demountables perched on the edge. This made navigation at the start of our longer, afternoon walk a bit tricky – everything described in our book for that bit of the walk was obliterated!

The picture on the left shows the remains of a building at Piano Provenzana

We headed up through the lava flow of the 2003 eruption, onto the lava flow from the 1879 or 1923 eruption, depending on which guide book you believe, past a line of small vents and cones and into a wasteland of more lava, heaped in huge waves. As we skirted round Mt Nero, a larger adventive cone, the views across to the Nebrodi Mountains, with its hill top towns, opened up.

Then the walk plunged about 400 m in elevation, initially through yet more lava, (Editor’s note: M had just said, “You know, I’m really over walking on lava”) then abruptly into beautiful beech forest and pine plantations until we finally reached our objective – the Grotte dei Lamponi, a huge lava tube some 2 m high and 4 m wide that runs for about 900 m.   We explored this for some time with my failing headlamp – amazing! (Editor’s note: M was so happy to play around in this cave/lava tube. He kept saying, “How cool is this?!” It was only the failing power of the torch that probably persuaded him to leave)

We emerged at about 4pm to find that cloud was closing in, and after 2.5 hours on what should have been a 3 hour walk, and only half way, we power-walked all the way back in an hour, crossing the saddle to Piano Provenzana in wind and cloud.

Another fantastic day!

Editor’s note: By the time we were heading back it was 4.30, with cloud rolling in, looking quite threatening, and getting decidedly chilly. All the guide books stress the importance of weather and safety, and I didn’t fancy getting stuck in a wilderness of rock, with little tracks going all over the place, as night fell and the fog closed in, especially with vents, caves, fissures, and other assorted geological holes in the earth’s crust dotted all over the landscape. We finally returned to the car at 5.30, both of us quite tired, and filthy from the fine black grit of the cinders on the path. My creamy coloured socks will never be quite the same again.

Author’s note: It looked threatening because J was still wearing her dark glasses! Though I would agree about the black grit – have a look at what it does to snow drifts…